Issues affecting communication
| Communication Concept | Scenario Illustrating Ineffective Communication | Solution for Effective Communication
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| sample | Downward communication | In a meeting with some but not all employees, the chief orally announced immediate changes in procedures. The presentation was confusing and left more questions than answers, and employees not in attendance did not receive the information. | Best practice: “Written communication is generally the most reliable mode for complex communication” (Robbins & Judge, 2017, p. 360). A detailed addition to the operating procedure manual was prepared before the changes took effect. The chief provided training to supervisors to prepare them for fielding questions and ensuring adherence to the policy |
| 1 | The CEO of the company sends an email to the departmental managers with the following subject: MEETING! As a result, the managers feel intimidated, and two of them fail to attend the meeting. | The tone of a message is very crucial in business communication. Therefore, the manager should not use an exclamation mark in the subject since the readers may interpret that as yelling or reprimanding. | |
| 2 | Non-verbal cues | The manager is briefing the employees in the organization’s conference hall. After one and a half hours of brief, he realizes that some employees are looking at their watch and are showing signs of restlessness. | One reason for the case scenario would be that the employees are late for other activities, or they are dissatisfied with what the manager is saying. Therefore, briefs should not take long since most of the employees have a low concentration span. |
| 3 | Jargons | In an induction meeting, the operations manager uses jargon in his communication. As a result, the new employees are left wondering what the manager was speaking about. | Jargon should be avoided at all costs, especially when addressing non-experts. However, they should only be used when the circumstance is unavoidable, and they should also be used sparingly. |
| 4 | Lying | The manager calls an employee to reprimand him about a low-quality product that the employee had produced. Over the conversation, the manager realizes that the employee is not telling the truth. | Face to face communication is crucial in the reprimanding of employees. This is because; one can easily identify the non-verbal cues that show signs of low confidence, low esteem, and dishonesty in a conversation. |
| 5 | Meeting | During a new year meeting, the line managers are involved in briefing the workers on new year’s resolutions and their projected profits for the year. However, very few employees turn up for the meeting. Additionally, a good number of those present show signs of restlessness during the meeting. | Meetings should be as engaging as possible to draw each member’s participation in realizing the organizational objectives. |
| 6 | Noise | An employee calls the supervisor to inform him that there are challenges executing the task. However, the supervisor is at a noisy place where they are not able to communicate. | Noise is a barrier to the effectiveness of a communication. This is because it can distract one from hearing what is said in addition to causing stress and anxiety as one tries to contemplate the message. |
| 7 | Verbal communication | The operations manager communicates orally to the supervisors who are to disseminate the information to their subordinates. On one occasion, the manager learnt that the message was distorted and thus not effective. | Written communication is crucial when addressing a large number of people. Therefore, the manager should have written his message and posted it on the employees’ noticeboard. |
| 8 | Face to face communication | The employee meets his supervisor, and throughout their conversation, the employee raises concerns about his working environment. The supervisor promises to air the concerns to the operations manager. However, when he meets the manager, he forgets some of the concerns raised by the employee. | Face to face communication does not provide a record of the communication. Therefore, written communication is crucial when addressing technical issues that might affect the organization’s productivity. |
| 9 | Written communication | The manager realizes that the employees did not satisfactorily clean the environment. She decides to write a memo to inform them to do the cleaning again. However, she fails to correct grammar and punctuation errors before posting the memo on the noticeboard. As a result, some employees interpret her message as requesting them to clean themselves other than the environment. | After writing any form of business communication, one should correct grammar and punctuation errors, which might affect the effectiveness of a message. |
| 10 | Grapevine | In the lunch break, three employees talk about the anticipated changes in management as the CEO is retiring. They try to guess who may be promoted to be the company’s CEO, considering that the deputy CEO had just left the organization and the position is not yet replaced. After returning to work, one of the employees’ shares false information regarding the promotion of a departmental manager to be the organization’s CEO. This causes disputes in the organization as most of the employees question the promotion of the departmental manager. | Employees gossiping can have adverse effects on the organization. Therefore, the management should clear any doubts and rumors soon as they occur. |
| 11 | Information overload | In organization ABX, employees are allowed to access all sorts of information to effectively execute their tasks. However, in the recent past, the organization’s productivity is still declining. | Too much information could also adversely affect the organization’s productivity. This is because some of the sources are not credible, and therefore they may be misleading. Only approved sources of information should be allowed for use by the employees. |
| 12 | Social media | Abigail applies for a job in organization ABZ where confidentiality and privacy are highly valued. She is asked to comment about her social media post she had made on Twitter regarding that company. | Social media is both useful and harmful if not used correctly. Therefore, one should sparingly use social media and ensure that the intended message is verified before posting. |
| 13 | Emotional barriers | In an organizational meeting attended by the area’s member of parliament, the CEO engaged in a political conversation with the employees. As a result, political differences arose, and some employees left the meeting before it was concluded. | Too much politics can affect the effectiveness of a message. Therefore politics, racial conversations, sexual and religious conversations should be avoided at all cost since they act as an emotional barrier to the audience. |
| 14 | Irrelevance | In a board meeting held by various departmental heads, the finance manager engaged in an irrelevant conversation about his previous visit to Dubai. This affected the effectiveness of the meeting since the main agenda was about the declining trends in sales. | Being irrelevant may affect the effectiveness of a communication. Therefore, one should stick to the main topics of the communication without any form of deviation whatsoever. |
| 15 | Cultural differences | A male supervisor fails to maintain personal distance while communicating with a female employee in an organization. As a result, the conversation ends prematurely since the lady leaves before the supervisor had concluded his message. | Understanding cultural differences is crucial to effective communication. Therefore, one should learn the perception of different communities to issues such as personal space, eye contact, among others. |
| 16 | Language differences | In an oral interview between a job applicant and several interviewers, one of them has an unclear accent, and therefore the applicant is not comfortable answering his questions. | Where language differences arise, written communication can be used to bridge the gap. Therefore, the interviewer should write down his questions instead of asking them orally. |
| 17 | Downward communication | The CEO announced the layoff of 400 staff of the organization. However, this created suspense and fear among the remaining workforce since the layoff’s reasons were not given. | Downward communications should be detailed as they involve matters of great interest to the employees. Some of them include a proposed merger of the company and the appointment of a new CEO. |
| 18 | Upward communication | Organization MBX has a long chain of command, which makes decision-making take a lot of time. | The chain of command should be as short as possible. This is done to ensure that urgent issues are addressed on time. |
| 19 | Horizontal communication | The finance manager and the sales manager of organization BXO are not in good terms. Recently, the CEO has realized a negative trend in sales where most of the sales are not entered in the sales ledger. | Interpersonal disputes affect the effectiveness of the horizontal communication. Therefore, the management should work to resolve them soon as they occur. This is because employees must always work together to achieve common organizational goals. |
| 20 | Communication apprehension | The newly-promoted human resource manager is asked to brief the board on his expectations and where he intends to take the organization several years to come. The manager is not used to giving speeches and therefore has challenges in stage management. This makes him stammer, which dilutes his intended message. | Preparation is crucial before giving speeches. Therefore, the manager should have been prepared his speech if enough time had been given. Additionally, where one has challenges managing a large number of people, written communication is the most reliable method of relaying the message. |